Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

God’s complete armor

¹⁰ What else is there to say? Just this: be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his power. ¹¹ Put on God’s complete armor. Then you’ll be able to stand firm against the devil’s trickery. ¹² The warfare we’re engaged in, you see, isn’t against flesh and blood. It’s against the leaders, against the authorities, against the powers that rule the world in this dark age, against the wicked spiritual elements in the heavenly places.

¹³ For this reason, you must take up God’s complete armor. Then, when wickedness grabs its moment, you’ll be able to withstand, to do what needs to be done, and still to be on your feet when it’s all over. ¹⁴ So stand firm! Put the belt of truth round your waist; put on justice as your breastplate; ¹⁵ for shoes on your feet, ready for battle, take the good news of peace. ¹⁶ With it all, take the shield of faith; if you’ve got that, you’ll be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is God’s word.

Prayer and peace

¹⁸ Pray on every occasion in the spirit, with every type of prayer and intercession. You’ll need to keep awake and alert for this, with all perseverance and intercession for all God’s holy ones— ¹⁹ and also for me! Please pray that God will give me his words to speak when I open my mouth, so that I can make known, loud and clear, the secret truth of the gospel. ²⁰ That, after all, is why I’m a chained-up ambassador! Pray that I may announce it boldly; that’s what I’m duty-bound to do.

⁵⁶ Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I remain in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living father sent me, and I live because of the father, so the one who eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread which came down from heaven; it isn’t like the bread which the ancestors ate, and died. The one who eats this bread will share the life of God’s new age.”

⁵⁹ He said this in the synagogue, while he was teaching in Capernaum.

Division among Jesus’ followers

⁶⁰ When they heard this, many of Jesus’ disciples said, “This is difficult stuff! Who can bear to listen to it?”

⁶¹ Jesus knew in himself that his disciples were grumbling about what he’d said.

“Does this put you off?” he said. ⁶² “What if you were to see the son of man ascending to where he was before? ⁶³ It’s the spirit that gives life; the flesh is no help. The words that I have spoken to you—they are spirit, they are life. ⁶⁴ But there are some of you who don’t believe.”

Jesus knew from the beginning, you see, those who didn’t believe, and the one who was going to betray him.

⁶⁵ “That’s why I said,” he went on, “that no one can come to me unless it is given to them by the father.”

⁶⁶ From that time on, several of his disciples drew back, and no longer went about with him.

⁶⁷ Jesus turned to the Twelve.

“You don’t want to go away too, do you?” he asked.

⁶⁸ Simon Peter spoke up.

“Master,” he said, “who can we go to? You’re the one who’s got the life-giving words of the age to come! ⁶⁹ We’ve come to believe it—we’ve come to know it!—that you are God’s holy one.”